Thursday, July 5, 2012

Heirloom Enchants and You: Cashing in on Pandas

Greetings, gold fans! No weekly update post this week, as I just don't feel like anything's changed enough to merit one. Things have been steady, if not outstanding, and my liquid gold total is sitting at about 631k.

I did, however, want to talk about a category that started making the top page of my sales data a little while back: heirloom enchants. Here's a quick summary for the uninitiated: In 3.2, Blizzard introduced the concept of Heirloom gear, gear that binds to your account and scales with a character's level, always being roughly equivalent to a good blue item of that level. Some of the pieces even gave experience bonuses. In short, it's the perfect leveling gear.

The problem is, for the purposes of enchanting and a few other things, these pieces of gear are always considered to have an item level of 1. This means that if you want to make your leveling experience even quicker and easier by enchanting the gear, only those enchants with no level requirement can be used.

This is good news for gold-makers, because it means we get to sell obscure Vanilla and occasionally Burning Crusade enchants for a ridiculous profit. Normally, these sell at a trickle at best, but with Mists of Pandaria on the horizon, people are already starting to buy them up. Since this expansion adds a new race (Pandaren) and a new class (Monk), I think we'll see a large demand for heirloom gear as the expansion gets closer, and certainly upon release.

With that in mind, let's go over the various options.

Weapons

Enchant Weapon - Agilityand Enchant 2H Weapon - Agility: I've covered these before, but for those of you just joining us, the recipes for both of these enchants are available at Honored and Friendly with Timbermaw Hold. A few quests for them in Felwood should easily get you there. The real bottleneck in producing these is the Essence of Air. If you can't find any on the AH, your best bet is usually going out and farming a few from Dust Stormers in Silithus.

These enchants are, and should continue to be, useful for Rogues, Feral/Guardian Druids, Enhancement Shamans, and most notably, Brewmaster and Windwalker Monks. (Note that Hunters are not on this list. They will no longer use melee weapons come MoP.)

Enchant Weapon - Mighty Intellect: With the changes that Cataclysm made to Intellect, this has officially supplanted Spellpower as the Best in Slot for caster heirlooms. In my mind, this is a good thing, as the formula for Mighty Intellect doesn't require any fooling around with drop rates. All you need to do is get at least Revered with the Thorium Brotherhood. As of Cata, this is simply a matter of doing the quests in Searing Gorge, starting with "A New Master...But Who?". After you're revered, hit up Lokhtos Darkbargainer in the Grim Guzzler in Blackrock Depths. (The recipe is limited quantity, so if someone else happened to grab one recently, you may have to wait a bit.)

Enchant Weapon - Crusader: Unfortunately, the heirloom weapon enchant for strength classes is also the one that's the biggest pain. This recipe has a small chance to drop from Scarlet Archmages in Eastern Plaguelands. If you manage to get the recipe, you'll also need two Righteous Orbs from the "living" side of Stratholme. This should probably be one of the last recipes you try to get, and the Auction House may be a better bet if you're lucky.

If you're fortunate enough to score this enchant, it's the best heirloom weapon enchant for Warriors, Death Knights, and Retribution and Protection paladins.

Cloaks

Enchant Cloak - Stealth: There are actually two ways to get this enchant. It can drop from the bosses in AQ40, or you can purchase it at exalted with the Cenarion Expedition. Personally, I'm not a fan of leaving things to chance, plus my enchanter is not one of my characters that can solo most of AQ40, so I choose the reputation grind.

This enchant is the best heirloom cloak enchant for Rogues, Feral and Guardian Druids, Enhancement Shamans, and Brewmaster and Windwalker Monks. It's also close for Protection Warriors, Protection Paladins, and Blood Death Knights.

Enchant Cloak - Superior Defense:This one is theoretically fairly easy to get. The recipe's sold by Lorelae Wintersong in Moonglade, and doesn't require any specific reputation or anything like that. The only trouble is that it's sold in limited quantities, and the respawn timer seems to vary quite a bit. Your best bet may be just popping in every so often and checking. The recipe isn't BoP, so if you've got a druid, you can just teleport right over to Moonglade to check it out.

It's hotly debated as to whether this or Stealth is better for plate tanks. If in doubt, put both up. You never know who might be looking specifically for one or the other.

Enchant Cloak - Subtlety: In all honesty, this one's kind of lame, but it's about all there is for strength and caster DPS, so some people are willing to pay for it. The easiest way to get it is to purchase it from the Thrallmar or Honor Hold quartermaster at exalted.

Chests

Enchant Chest - Greater Stats: This is the best heirloom chest enchant for everyone. Unfortunately, it's also a very difficult recipe to get your hands on. The recipe is a very low chance world drop from Outlands. Farming for it is nearly impossible, so if you happen to see it on the AH, grab it. For the rest of us, the second-best option is Enchant Chest - Stats, which is learned from the trainer.

I think that covers it, but let me know what you think in the comments. Anything I missed? Anything you've found is selling particularly well?